The present invention relates generally to the field of customized telecommunication services, and more specifically to providing customized telephone services made available by the next-generation Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) to customers receiving standard services from existing telephone facilities.
The telephone network presently is undergoing a transition from the intelligent network (IN/1) that has been in place for many years to an AIN. The evolving AIN provides both advanced service features and flexible service provisioning capabilities that make it very beneficial to customers, particularly those with unique service requirements. Because implementation of the AIN is an ongoing process, however, many of the customized telephone services to be provided by the AIN presently are not available to customers receiving standard services from the existing IN/1 facilities. For example, customers receiving standard "800" services from IN/1 facilities may desire customized AIN features that are not yet implemented for "800" customers. Although customers presently have the ability to designate an interexchange carrier (IC) and routing numbers (either POTS numbers or dialed "800" numbers) with some flexibility, e.g., time of day or day of week, more dynamic service features are unavailable. Desirable features that are not available include caller interaction with options designated by the "800" customer, and the ability to make routing decisions based on the states of network resources such as customer terminating facilities or IC trunking facilities. These types of dynamic features are, however, increasingly available with the AIN.
A natural desire of "800" customers is to have available, at reasonable cost and in timely fashion, the type of dynamic service features available with the AIN. However, immediate implementation of the complete and ubiquitous AIN is not practical. Unfortunately, expansion of the standard IN/1 "800" service to deliver AIN services will require expensive and time-consuming switch modifications, as well as modifications to the existing IN/1 "800" service control applications and operations support system. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a means for bridging the gap between existing "800" services supplied by the IN/1 and the evolving features made available by the AIN, without immediate expansion or modification of the existing IN/1 network systems.